Friday, 13 May 2016

Just as the
sun begins to warm our skin exam time looms for thousands of students. Hours
are to be spent huddled over books and computers and acres of notes are
created. Inevitably some students just seem to work through this process but
for others it is a time of stress, torment and crushing self-doubt, all of this
bleeding into the life of the family.

I must
confess that as a 16 year old and later taking my finals at degree level, I
recall vividly vowing never to sit an exam again such was my fear. On the night of one of my ‘O’ levels I was to
be found under my parents bed weeping in sheer panic, the best solution thought
to give me the following morning some little pill
from the medicine cabinet. This of
course taught me no real coping strategies and did me no favours. Exams for most young people are a fact of their
educational lives, but with a few strategies I believe they should not cause
the fear and panic I myself have experienced as well as witnessed in the young
people I work with and know.

One of the
most rewarding aspects of being a counsellor/Hypnotherapist has been in the
last month or so working with students with anticipated exam stress. They have
usually have had moments of sheer panic or been communicated with in a non-
productive way causing great lack of confidence. My experience has been of
students caught in a system that puts a great deal of expectation of high
results, from all angles; teachers, parents (no matter how laid back we may
appear they want to please us)and of course themselves. There seems to be a
constant highly critical and negative internal dialogue of ‘I must, get a grip,
it will be the end of the world’.

So what do
we work on in clinic? Really it is a
process of putting everything into context (creating the bigger picture),
turning negative self-talk into something positive and with some personal
healthy coping strategies if the panic does begin to bite.

·Initially
we talk about what path the student sees themselves following, their hopes and
expectations for the future. Does an A grade really matter to them, or other
people? Do they need it to get where they want to go? We talk about the things
they love doing, the things they don’t.
Crucially we talk about what is the worst that could happen in reality?
Remember Edison failed numerous times before creating the light bulb.

·Practicalities
matter. A steady revision timetable with
times for breaks and rest. The breaks are nourishment for the body and
soul. Crucially we talk about the night
before the exam, hopefully getting the whole family on-board and planning a
stopping time for revision as well as relaxing and comforting activities that
will ensure reasonable nights sleep.

·Importantly
we work on breathing, a skill for life.
Basic meditation techniques are brilliant in helping the body reach a
place that is calm and receptive. Just asking the student to find 10 minutes a
day to sit in a quiet place and listen with a gentle awareness to the sounds
around then is a simple way to start, this can be extended then to bringing
gentle awareness to their breathing.
Within moments the whole body begins to relax down.

·Tina
Turner had the right idea when she strutted about the stage in a red dress and
high heels if I recall singing ‘simply the best, better than all the
rest’. Well you don’t have to go that
far but Ms Turner is a good illustration of positive self- talk. This is also
another skill for life; the ability to step back and realise we are not helping
ourselves when we hear that inner voice say ‘I can’t do this’. A better
strategy is to learn the habit of turning the difficult into something that
helps us. One such method in this case is the creation of a little phrase (self-Affirmation)
personal to the student that helps to keep them on track and motivated such as
‘I can do this, this is just one more step toward my goal’. In clinic we often combine this affirmation
with a self -soothing technique, the best one I know is to gently create a
circular movement with your index finger on either the wrist of your other hand
or the palm, whilst keeping your eyes fixed on an object of your choice.

·Now
finally in clinic I do use Hypnosis in this situation. Crucially and this could be done at home, we
look at all the steps to taking the exam, talking about the least fearful to
the most, seeing at this point if there is a more positive way of looking at
the situation. Where I differ as a
counsellor and Hypnotherapist is that under hypnosis I then work with my client
at a process called desensitization, gradually working through the steps and
reducing the fear and replacing this with the desired states of the client;
usually calm, confidence and problem solving strategies. Projecting into the future new positive
habits and ways of being.

I do hope
that in some way this article helps stressed parents or students. I know that exams, although never a
completely joyful experience for the majority of us, can have the ability to
stress us all to the point of exhaustion considerably reduced.

Saturday, 19 March 2016

As human beings from
time to time we all find ourselves worrying over something. You maybe the sort of person who wakes up at
5.00am ruminating over some perceived
difficulty you are facing, or just get constantly distracted during the day by
some worry that just keeps churning round in your mind. One of the most
discussed difficulties with clients in my clinic is rumination, that inability
to just let unhelpful thoughts go.

It is often believed that being able to worry is a positive
personality trait, that it aids problem solving, that if: ‘I worry hard enough about something in the
future, about which I have no real certainty of the outcome then
perhaps…..’ Well exactly you can’t
predict the future, that would be a unique trick. How many times has the thing
you have been worrying about been completely different. For those of you with
teenagers; how many hours have you spent talking through worries at school from
a presentation to relationship difficulties, to be yourself on tenterhooks all
day only to be brushed aside casually when they return home with a ‘oh that,
yeah it was great, no worries’. Other
beliefs claim that worrying is a motivating force, that worrying protects and
prepares against negative outcomes: ‘if I worry about something bad happening
then at least I will be emotionally prepared when it does’. ‘Being stressed and
worrying is who I am, in my job it’s the only way to get things done!’

Constant worry, Rumination and let’s include here self- criticism,
keep your body’s threat (fight or flight) system alive and kicking. Welcome
then the sympathetic nervous system; telling your body it needs extra
adrenaline and cortisol to make your heart work faster, to feed oxygen to your
muscles (in case you need to run) shut down your capacity to actually think
rationally and calmly (ever frozen in an interview?) as well as restrict your
ability to digest food. Of course I
simplify. There are all levels to the
body’s stress response but worry and rumination activate processes within your
body that if continued for any length of time can affect not only your mental
health and wellbeing (I often work with people who are just generally anxious)
but also compromise your immune system leaving you open to a range physical
illnesses.

Worry Busting

There are a whole range of approaches to help ease you away
from rumination but above all for me it is about learning to be compassionate
to oneself. That is to say endeavouring to treat yourself with kindness and
understanding. Being compassionate in
fact activates the parasympathetic nervous system (putting the brakes on the
threat response); one of the effects being to release the hormones oxytocin
(the loved up hormone) and Vasopressin, thus helping to restore the body’s
natural balance, lower blood pressure and generally create a feeling of
optimism.

·The first action is to bring into your
consciousness the fact that you are worrying, even saying to yourself: ‘oh I am
worrying’, then state clearly what you are worrying about. You could break this
down by asking; what are my thoughts, emotions and how am I behaving?

·The next set of questions to ask yourself are:
Is this situation in my control? Is the way I am thinking logical, if I looked
at this from another person’s perspective how would it look? Is there evidence to
support my thinking this way, are there facts that could help dispute your way
of looking at the problem. My favourite question here is: Is worrying about
this helpful or unhelpful to my wellbeing at this moment? The answer is usually
no!

·So is there anything I can do now? If yes then
take action (act rather than worry) even if it means making a list of things to
do tomorrow, and then put the list away. You have done all you can do. If the answer is no, the source of the worry
is beyond my control, then there are any number of ways to work with this.

Distraction

You can deliberately change your thoughts
or your actions to something positive; getting busy round the house, going for
a brisk walk, thinking about a place where you remember feeling serene or
safe. You could also help this along by
saying to yourself: ‘STOP, CANCEL, CHANGE’ and in your mind imagine, in turn a
stop sign, wiping the worry away and then changing to a more positive thought
(some people use an elastic band on their wrist to ping when they say stop).

Writing

Many of my clients report that writing
helps. Often setting down your worries
on paper even if you don’t read them back helps to get them said and
rationalised. Once written down it is
your choice what you do then; worries have been written on balloons and let go,
put onto computers and deleted, safely burned, ripped up and thrown away.

Worry
Time

You can give yourself allotted worry time
each day, condensing your worries into a planned slot. After a time most people come to the realization
that it takes a great effort to force yourself to worry.

Mindful
Meditation

Learning Mindful Meditation is a longer
term solution affecting your overall health and wellbeing. Meditation is a
journey of discovery, not only helping you to relax and look at the process of
worrying in a new and non- judgmental way but to gain a deep level of understanding about
your own mind and body and your relationship to the world you inhabit.

In writing this article I have put together
thoughts drawn from a range of therapeutic approaches and all are used within
my own practice with clients. As ever I
would welcome your thoughts and feedback.

About Me

Counsellor, Psychotherapist and Hypnotherapist living in Chelmsford, Essex and with an interest in stress related difficulties as well as Mindfulness and EMDR for treating Trauma. I have an integrated approach to therapy working with you to achieve your wellbeing.